A regular customer of the store bought ten $100 dollar gift cards for the employees at the store. Well my store had 13 employees at the time so naturally my store manager who was there at the time decided who she was giving them to and didn't tell anyone else about them. The rest of us had to hear it second hand from other employees. We weren't even suppose to accept gifts from customers especially ones that extravagant. (It's a lot for a base level barista.)
One of my shift managers reports her to the district manager who tells her not to give any more out but this was a few days later and she had already given out five of them. One of which went to somebody who was leaving the company and another went to somebody who ended up leaving with no notice and had 3 weeks worth of shifts to cover. The other $500 worth of gift cards were decided to go to an employee appreciation party (A desperate attempt to cover their behinds.) Most of the barista's were reasonably angry at the store manager which prompted the district manager to call a meeting.
Now by this point I have been working in customer service for almost 7 years and I have never been treated more like a child than I was during this meeting. Most of the store was there save for 3 or 4 people. The district manager walks in with a stack of printer paper and tells the store manager to head out for an hour then proceeds to ask us about team work and what we can do to improve the store and new things to try going forward. Writing all of it down like it's not going to end up in the trash shortly after this meeting. It was roughly 50 minutes of the district manager desperately trying to not bring up the gift cards or the store manager even when prompted. While spoon feeding us this fluffy bull@#$% about being part of a team. So someone finally directly asks to talk about the gift cards because we all know that's why the meeting is happening and nobody (especially the district manager) seems to want to bring it up. The district manager then proceeds to go to bat for the store manager like she was her defense attorney. Downplaying the entire situation while she does that. At this point I am fuming. I'll take an apology at the very least but I can't even get that. Not from the district manager that had the gall to come in here with some printer paper and a pen like she gave a @#$% and thought the whole thing was just gonna be sunshine and rainbows and forgetting how mistreated we were. Or from the store manager who decided to play favorites before looking up the rules on gifts or being stupid enough to think the other employees weren't going to find out about the gift cards. The store manager didn't even have any repercussions for her behavior.
Also I found out later that most of the district managers in the area hate this district manager. I can't imagine why (I can.)
TL;DR Management doesn't give a @#$% about you, will actively work against you, and prevent you from moving up or even feeling like a human.
Unionize this disgusting and dehumanizing train wreck of a company!